Is Your Sheep Stressed? Just Ask It Stressed-out sheep bleat out their anguish, U.S. researchers reported. They found that,like humans, sheep communicate stress by changing the timbre of their voices. Mark Feinstein of Hampshire College in Amherst,Massachusetts, said his findings could help farmers and, of course, the sheep they herd. An expert in bioacoustics*, Feinstein did his work at Teagasc, an Irish government agricultural research organization. He isolated sheep and separated lambs from their mothers as part of his experiments ?then recorded their bleats. His recordings suggest that sheep express stress by altering the timbre of their vocalizations, or the overall quality of sounds, rather than by changing pitch or loudness. Stress can be measured by taking an animal's blood, but it would be much easier, cheaper and, yes, less stressful to simply listen, Feinstein said. * bioacoustics：生物聲學(xué)，研究對(duì)象為生物發(fā)出的聲音及影響生物的聲音，尤其是與生物間溝通有關(guān)的聲音。 “聽(tīng)”羊羔訴苦 美國(guó)研究人員說(shuō)，不堪重負(fù)的綿羊會(huì)用叫聲訴說(shuō)苦悶。他們發(fā)現(xiàn)，綿羊和人一樣會(huì)通過(guò)改變聲音的音色來(lái)抒發(fā)壓抑的情緒。馬薩諸塞州阿姆赫斯特鎮(zhèn)漢普郡學(xué)院的馬克·費(fèi)恩斯泰因宣稱(chēng)自己的發(fā)現(xiàn)可以助農(nóng)夫們一臂之力，對(duì)他們放牧的羊群當(dāng)然也有好處。費(fèi)恩斯泰因是一位生物聲學(xué)專(zhuān)家，在愛(ài)爾蘭政府的農(nóng)業(yè)研究機(jī)構(gòu)Teagasc進(jìn)行研究工作。他的實(shí)驗(yàn)內(nèi)容之一是把綿羊隔離起來(lái)，并把母羊和小羊分開(kāi)，然后記錄它們的叫聲。錄音顯示綿羊表達(dá)壓抑感的方式是改變音色，亦即聲音的整體性質(zhì)，而不是改變音調(diào)或聲音的大小。費(fèi)恩斯泰因說(shuō)，檢測(cè)動(dòng)物壓力的方法之一是采血，但傾聽(tīng)是一種簡(jiǎn)便得多、成本也低得多的方法。還有，它也是最輕松的方法。 Remarks：看起來(lái)，“狼來(lái)了”的悲劇可以避免了——是真是假，聽(tīng)聽(tīng)音色就行了(狼對(duì)羊造成的壓力想必不小)。